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There may be fewer of them outside venues, but touts have become increasingly active in the online ticketing market in recent years.

As a result, the Culture, Media and Sport Committee is discussing the issue this week, following proposed changes to the Digital Economy Bill.

So what’s the issue with secondary ticketing, is it legal, and what are the solutions being mooted?

Bots and secondary ticketing sites

A bot is a type of software application that runs automated tasks over the internet.

Ticket touts use these bots to sweep up huge numbers of tickets to events as soon as they go on sale, and then immediately place them on the secondary market at an inflated price.

As it stands anyone can resell a ticket for any price on any of the four key resale sites in the UK: Get Me In, Viagogo, Seatwave and StubHub.

Adele is one artist directly tackling ticket touts (Photo: Getty)

But is this legal?

Currently, it’s perfectly legal. There is no legislation surrounding the increased fees on tickets in the secondary market.

The only exception is football tickets. The re-sale of tickets for profit is forbidden without the express permission of the football club.

What artists think of secondary ticketing sites

“These sites should be shut down.” (Marina Diamandis)

“It’s something we wholeheartedly disagree with and we would never have our tickets sold by anyone to a different party than a normal ticket operator.” (Two Door Cinema Club)

“If people are posing as being genuine and actually they’re just making even more of a profit from already very expensive shows, that’s not cool.” (Gbenga Adelekan, Metronomy)

Commercially there is little incentive for ticket companies to act, as their booking fees simply increase the more inflated price of the resale ticket.

Where the legality becomes muddier is where secondary sellers ignore re-sale restrictions from the venues or promoters.

Last year, Viagogo listed tickets for Hamlet, starring Benedict Cumberbatch, at the Barbican.

These tickets had strict re-sale restrictions and required photo ID on the door. Viagogo was then listing some of these tickets for up to £1,500.

Critics of the secondary market make the point that a lack of transparency about who sells the tickets means that enforcement of touts is almost entirely impossible.

Sellers are keen to point out that there is little incentive to commit fraud because they do not pay the seller until after the event and offer refunds to consumers.

StubHub, however, does admit to paying certain “carefully vetted sellers” ahead of the event.

Primary sellers

Adele ticket rush

Earlier this year tickets to see Adele on her UK arena tour were going for £24,000.

This was 290 times the face value of the tickets, and it came after Adele and her management had taken measures against touts.

There are also suspicions that primary ticket sellers move allocations from their sites to secondary sites at the same time as they go on sale.

In 2015, 364 tickets for Rod Stewart’s tour were on sale on StubHub before primary tickets had even become available.

StubHub says that it does not own, or purchase, tickets to any event listed on its site.

Get Me In does require sellers to declare if they are affiliated with Ticketmaster or the event organiser. It remains unclear how many people do this.

Live Nation, which owns Ticketmaster, Seatwave and Get Me In, does admit in its annual report to occasionally reassigning tickets “from time to time on a limited basis”.

An age-old racket: a ticket tout makes a sale to two boys in 1958 (Photo: Getty)

What can realistically be done?

Of the options available, parliamentary legislation within the secondary market is the most obvious route.

Industry officials are keen for anti-bot legislation, which has been adopted successfully in Canada and some parts of the United States.

However, another key change called for by campaigners is a cap on profits of 10% on the resale of tickets, and more transparency for sellers on the secondary market.

Until such legislation though, consumers do have some options:

Avoid these sites and use services designed to directly combat touts. These include fan-to-fan resale sites and apps like Twickets and Dice, which are incorporating new technologies to help fans find tickets to sold out and high demand events, without charging them any additional fees.

Buying directly from venues can also be helpful as they have the lowest fees and you can be sure your ticket is valid.

Certain artists with serious commercial clout, including Adele, Iron Maiden and Florence and the Machine, are also cutting new deals with promoters that abolish re-sales of tickets to their shows.

There is however, a commercial demand for a secondary ticket market.

Ticketmaster also point out that between 30-40% of their tickets on the re-sale market value are actually sold at face value or cheaper.

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